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Canadian companies take advantage o



                             Canadian companies take advantage of lax 
Canadian controls, says
                             watchdog

                             OTTAWA (CP) September 18, 2000 -- Canadian 
companies are taking
                             advantage of lax federal controls to exploit 
workers and the environment
                             in Myanmar, helping prop up a corrupt military 
regime in the process,
                             says a mining watchdog.

                             The group Mining Watch Canada says Ivanhoe 
Mines Ltd.,
                             incorporated in the Yukon and registered on 
the Toronto Stock
                             Exchange, is raping the environment and using 
forced labour to build
                             roads in the country once known as Burma.

                              Canada imposed limited sanctions on the 
country in 1997, but not on
                             investment. Activists urged Canada on Monday 
-- the 12th anniversary of
                             Myanmar's military regime -- to sanction 
investors.
                             Myanmar's are the "worst set of mining 
regulations that I have ever seen from
                             a social and environmental point of view," 
said Roger Moody, an anti-mining
                             campaigner.

                              "There is no question that human-rights 
abuses are now being attached
                             to the exploitation of mining in Burma," said 
Moody, who released a 78-page
                             report on mining in the Southeast Asia 
country, including a list of more than a
                             dozen Canadian companies that have conducted 
operations there.

                             "In particular, concern is being raised about 
the expansion of the Ivanhoe
                             (copper) mines."

                            Myanmar's regime, which owns 50 per cent of 
Ivanhoe's operations there, has
                             identified mining as critical to providing 
foreign exchange and income, said
                             Moody.

                              Ivanhoe president Dan Koonz called the Mining 
Watch report a "deliberate
                             misrepresentation of the facts" by an 
anti-mining zealot.
                              "He's far from an independent," Koonz said 
from Boise, Idaho. "He basically
                             has some agenda that's anti-mining, anti-big 
company."
                              Koonz denied the most charges but 
acknowledged that Ivanhoe's Myanmar
                             operations are a joint venture with the 
country's mines ministry.
                              The National League for Democracy won 
Myanmar's last elections in 1990 by
                             a landslide but has never been allowed to 
govern. A repressive military junta
                             has remained in power since 1988.
                              "There are 146 different tribes and ethnic 
groups that have been at civil war for
                             decades and decades," Koonz said. "It's 
complicated.
                              "The military government, unfortunately, is 
probably the only form of
                             government that can deal with such a complex 
problem."

                              Moody said people have been forced to work 
and were driven from their land to
                             make way for expansion of Ivanhoe's Monywa mine.

                              Koonz, who says he's been to Myanmar hundreds 
of times, denied it.
                              The mine, he said, was functioning for a 
decade before Ivanhoe took over.
                              "We've paid very good wages. There was never 
any forced labour."

                              Foreign Affairs spokesman Francois Lasalle 
said Ottawa has no confirmation
                             of forced labour in Myanmar.

                              Moody said local water supplies have been 
contaminated and health problems
                             are evident.

                              Koonz said Ivanhoe is using technology that's 
environmentally superior to that
                             used in 70 per cent of world copper production.

                              Ivanhoe, owned by Canadian Robert Friedland, 
was incorporated in the Yukon,
                             where laws do not require directors to be 
resident in Canada and Ivanhoe can
                             profit from lax foreign-income controls.

                              Several Ivanhoe board members are Canadian 
residents, said Koonz.
                              "I think the suggestion is that since we 
incorporated in a place where we get
                             some advantages, we're bad boys," he said. 
"But if you look at a roster of
                             who's incorporated in the Yukon, we will not 
be alone.
                              "There are hundreds of companies there."

                             Ottawa has repeatedly discouraged companies 
from investing in Myanmar,
                             but the law makes it difficult to cut off all 
Canadian investments there, said
                             Lasalle.

                            "It requires 'a grave breach of international 
peace and security that results or
                             is likely to result in a serious international 
crisis". said Lasalle.

                              "Although the situation there is deplorable 
and tragic, it doesn't meet that
                             requirement."